St. Patrick-St. Vincent High football team soars past Berean Christian

St. Patrick-St. Vincent High School head coach Lane Hawkins, far right, talks to his team’s offense during a timeout on Saturday at Berean Christian. The Bruins won 56-35.
Matt O’Donnell — Times-Herald

WALNUT CREEK >> The St. Patrick-St. Vincent High offense can be explosive. The Bruins’ defense is athletic and can help turn a game with their ball-hawking skills.

The St. Pat’s football team can’t quite do all that for 48 minutes straight but the show is still quite entertaining as well as successful.

The Bruins improved to 3-0 on Saturday afternoon by beating host Berean Christian, 56-35, in rematch from the North Coast Section playoffs last season.

St. Pat’s senior running back Marshel Martin rushed for a game-high 291 yards on 20 carries and scored a whopping five times — on runs of 88, 78, 47, 5 and 4.

Even if Martin Lawrence was in town, Marshel might have been the more impressive Martin.

“I think he runs harder, he understands the system a little more, he knows where his blocks are,” St. Pat’s head coach Lane Hawkins said. “I think he knows where those blocks are coming from and he’s able to set it up and that makes it a little easier for the line. He did a really good job today.”

Martin said since the Eagles (0-3) kept scoring, it made the game a little more interesting than the first two weeks of the season.

“It was fun; it was good having competition,” Martin said. “I think that makes us better.”

St. Pat’s quarterback Akil Edwards was impressive as well. The junior was 9 of 15 passing for 171 yards as he fired a 71-yard tochdown to Noah Togonon to make it 14-0 in the first quarter and a 45-yard touchdown strike to Murvin Kenion to up the lead to 41-20 in the third quarter. On the touchdown to Kenion, Edwards was able to pick up the blitz and find the open man.

Edwards ran for 56 yards and scored on a 5-yard touchdown as well. Kenion had five catches for 90 yards.

St. Pat’s picked off Berean quarterback Quincy Rhone four times as Noah Maher, Kailon Johnson-Loud, Charlie Rose and Jamonte Barrett had the interceptions.

Despite those turnovers, Rhone still had quite a day, throwing for 217 yards on 16 of 27 passing. Tyler Werner caught 61-yard and 5-yard touchdown strikes from Rhone and Jayden Jackson caught a 14-yard TD.

Hawkins was pleased with the interceptions but noted that the defense got beat at times by the big play.

“The first few teams we faced didn’t throw the ball that much,” Hawkins said. “We had four interceptions but we had maybe two, three or four long passes that shouldn’t have happened. I think we had guys out of place.”

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The Bruins led 7-0 in the first quarter when Maher’s interception set up Martin’s 4-yard touchdown run. The Bruins forced the Eagles to turn the ball over on downs later in the quarter. Two plays later, Edwards found Togonon wide open over the middle of the field and the senior scored from 71 yards out to make it 14-0.

A Johnson-Loud interception on the next series led to Martin’s 78-yard touchdown run for the 21-0 lead, also in the first quarter.

The Eagles finally forced the Bruins to punt and cut the lead to 21-7 in the second quarter on a 14-yard touchdown pass from Rhone to Jackson.

St. Pat’s, however, quickly recovered as Rose’s interception led to Edwards’ 5-yard touchdown run and a 28-7 lead.

The Bruins carried that edge into halftime.

Berean did not quite go away in the second half as the Eagles recovered an Edwards’ fumble and scored on a Justice Jackson 3-yard touchdown early in the third quarter to cut the lead to 28-13.

Martin, however, scored again, this time from 88 yards out in the next minute. The senior used a spin move on one defender and shook another would-be tackler before finding open space in the middle of the field on the touchdown jaunt.

St. Pat’s was never really threatened again.

The Bruins graduated three senior starters on their offensive line so the unit is still a work in progress but Martin thought they were much improved on Saturday.

“I think everything I had today, they made it for me,” he said.

The Bruins conclude the preseason with home games against Kelseyville and Bethel the next two weeks. The Kelseyville game is an added date.